What’s in a name?

Newcastle UK, June 29th 2015, sandwiched between two giant brains at a dinner table, 18,851 kilometres from home. L, an ex-pat American, currently living in the UK; late career academic and fellow foodie, effortlessly erudite on the role of hetero-normativity, Focauldian theory, Judith Butler, Gender-Performativity, Derrida, and queerness, amongst other things. J, his nephew, an American currently employed to research and rid the world of malaria. And me; a Kiwi from New Zealand, a would be Poet and Perfumer, former Belly Dancer, currently designing kitchens for a large hard-ware chain, with a smattering of English Lit and Political Studies Papers trailing behind me, and a penchant for good food. And a penchant for gorgeous, queer FTM’s, with giant brains and matching appetites and proclivities away from the dinner table as it turns out.

I’d flown in 10 days earlier, after a marathon long distance 8 month correspondence with L, that had begun at a website that had nothing to do with food. I’d responded to one of his posts, and suggested he ought to come to NZ where the queer femmes taste of pavlova and strawberries instead of bread pudding. We took the conversation to private, and we became, as he coined it, intimate strangers. Now, 10 days of food porn behind us, J had arrived the previous evening for a 2 night stay, on his way home from a conference.

The conversation on neo-liberalism, over mussels in saffron and white wine, turned to doughnuts. Traditional, old fashioned doughnuts.

L: “They had crunchy outsides and cakey dense insides. Mmmmm”

J: “And they tasted like nutmeg and cinnamon. I prefer the flavour of mace to nutmeg though. Mmmmm”

Me: “Mace is like a Gutsy Nutmeg. Mmmmm”

L: “Hahaha. Gutsy Nutmeg sounds like a 1920’s porn name. Mmmmm”

Me: “OMG. That would be a GREAT name for a food blog!”

J: :::googling GutsyNutmeg on his smart-phone::: “It’s available – no GutsyNutmeg on the internet yet!…”